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Sing a Song of Murder
Production Information Summary Jessica's cousin in London, Emma MaGill, has been having quite a few near misses that she believes is someone targeting for murder due to her owning a failing theater that would be valuable if sold. When she "dies", Jessica goes to London to attend her funeral and finds out that the death is a ruse in attempt to draw out the would-be murderer. Trivia The song that Angela Lansbury sings as Emma MacGill, "Good-bye, Little Yellow Bird," is the song her character sang in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Angela Lansbury's mother took Moyna MacGill as her stage name, and the surname MacGill is used several times in the series for Jessica Fletcher's ancestors or relatives. Reunites Angela Lansbury with Glynis Johns, her co-star in The Court Jester (1955), and with Olivia Hussey who played her daughter in Death on the Nile (1978). The title is from the nursery rhyme "Sing a song of six pence" that is usually found in Mother Goose collections. The poster by Ian Pollock on Oliver Trumbull's wall is from the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1982 production of King Lear directed by Adrian Noble and shows Michael Gambon and Anthony Sher. Jessica and Emma are identical cousins. Another TV show with identical cousins was The Patty Duke Show (1963) with Patty and Cathy. Goofs The type of Music Hall varieties depicted were gone from the British scene by 1960. A 1957 Mk1 Jaguar is clearly marked up as a Police car. Although the Police have used Jaguars as police cars, this particular model would be too dated for them to use here. When singing "Goodbye Little Yellow Bird" Emma blows a kiss to Oliver offstage, but she is still singing the song when she is blowing the kiss. Although it's possible she was pretending as it was part of the act, her voice wasn't even muffled by her hand. Mismatched stock footage of Piccadilly Circus is used. The first shot shows hoardings on the London Pavilion building, which were removed in the 1970s. A later shot shows the Pavilion building without the hoardings. When Emma was almost hit by a car, she jumped up onto the edge of the wall and then back down onto the floor. When she landed she was facing the theater door, but when Oliver came of the door and the shot changed, she was facing away from the wall. This happened in the transition from stunt person to Angela. An establishing shot shows Roger Crimmins' office to be in New Scotland Yard. The building, even in this shot, has continuous windows on each floor yet Crimmins' office only has one average sized, discrete window flanked by long sections of walls. A double-decker London bus is clearly seen passing the front of Heathrow Airport. These actually service central London and long-hauls across the capital. Instead, the airport is serviced by single-decker buses. As London's Heathrow airport was developed swiftly after WW2 from an airstrip in a country field, it does not have early Twentieth Century brick buildings crowding opposite its entrance, but a vast acreage of spacious parking. Such a case as this would not fall under the jurisdiction of New Scotland Yard, but either the Metropolitan Police or the City of London Police, depending on locality in the capital. When there is a near miss car accident, a man says "you need a seeing eye dog". In the UK, seeing eye dogs would be referred to as Guide dog. None of the London taxi cabs have their "FOR HIRE" sign lit up. This seems deeply unlikely. If the driver is on duty and has no passengers, he is required by the Carriage Office to switch it on. If he does not, he can be reported and suffer a heavy fine if not loss of his license altogether. When the first scene at Emma's hideaway was shown, obviously the two characters Emma and Jessica were filmed separately on the couch and then the film was put together (as both are played by Angela Lansbury). However, Jessica did a lot of moving while she was talking, so Emma was looking straight across at where she had been, despite her bending down while she talked. There are no yellow or red lines along the kerbs. Parking is very restricted in central London, nearly every piece of street without a meter is marked with either yellow or red lines beside the kerb indicating various levels of parking prohibition. The streets are too wide for London. Furthermore, in London, the middle lanes are always marked with continuous or broken white lines due to their narrowness, yet none of these markings are present. Starring Regular Cast Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher / Emma McGill Guest Stars Sarah Douglas as Violet Weems Olivia Hussey as Kitty Trumbull Barrie Ingham as Inspector Roger Crimmins Glynis Johns as Bridget O'Hara Patrick McNee as Oliver Trumbull Greg Martyn as Danny Briggs Kristoffer Tabori as Ernest Fielding Kenneth Danziger as Archie Weems DVD Release Episode Chronology See Also External Links Category:Murder, She Wrote episodes